Wiru or Witu is the language spoken by the Wiru people of Ialibu-Pangia District of the Southern Highlands Province of Papua New Guinea. The language has been described by Harland Kerr, a missionary who lived in the Wiru community for many years. Kerr's work with the community produced a Wiru Bible translation and several unpublished dictionary manuscripts, as well as Kerr's Master's thesis on the structure of Wiru verbs.
There are a considerable number of resemblances with the Engan languages, suggesting Wiru might be a member of that family, but language contact has not been ruled out as the reason. Usher classifies it with the Teberan languages.
Evolution Wiru reflexes of proto-Trans-New Guinea (pTNG) etyma are:
ibi(ni) ‘name’ < *imbi nomo ‘louse’ < *niman laga ‘ashes’ < *la(ŋg,k)a tokene ‘moon’ < *takVn[V] mane ‘instructions, incantations’ < *mana keda ‘heavy’ < *ke(nd,n)a mo- ‘negative prefix’ < *ma-
Phonology
Consonants LabialAlveolarRetroflexPalatalVelarNasalPlosivevoicelessprenasalLiquid()Approximant
can be heard as aspirated in word-initial position and can also be heard with slight friction and voicing, in word-medial positions. can be heard as when preceded by and followed by or . It is heard as in all other intervocalic environments.
Vowels FrontCentralBackCloseMidOpen
Stress Content words in Wiru feature stress on the initial syllable. Stressed syllables are longer, while unstressed syllables feature vowel reduction and lenition of the onset consonant. → [ˈkʰáːɣə̀] ('banana'), in which the phoneme /k/ is realized as an aspirated stop in the stressed syllable and as an unaspirated fricative in the unstressed syllable, and the phoneme /a/ is elongated in the stressed syllable and realized as a schwa in the unstressed syllable. Because Wiru uses lexical and grammatical tone, stress is not marked through pitch changes.
Pronouns Trans–New Guinea–like pronouns are no 1sg (< *na) and ki-wi 2pl, ki-ta 2du (< *ki).
Syntax Wiru has a general noun-modifying clause construction. In this construction, a noun can be modified by a clause that immediately precedes it. The noun may, but need not, correspond to an argument of the modifying clause. Such constructions can be used to express a wide range of semantic relationships between clause and noun. The follow examples all use the same noun-modifying clause construction:
The noun-modifying clause construction imposes a falling tone on the head noun. That is, no matter what the lexical tone of the noun that is being modified is, it takes on a high-low tone pattern when it is modified in a noun-modifying clause construction.
Vocabulary The following basic vocabulary words are from Franklin (1973,Franklin, K.J. "Other Language Groups in the Gulf District and Adjacent Areas". In Franklin, K. editor, The linguistic situation in the Gulf District and adjacent areas, Papua New Guinea. C-26:261-278. Pacific Linguistics, The Australian National University, 1973. 1975),Franklin K.J. 1975. Comments on Proto-Engan. In S.A. Wurm, Ed. New Guinea Area Languages and Language Study: Papuan languages and the New Guinea linguistic scene. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics, pp. 263-275. as cited in the Trans-New Guinea database:
gloss Wiru head tobou hair pine; píne ear kabidi eye lene nose timini tooth kime tongue keke; keké leg kawa louse nomo; nomò dog tue pig kaì bird ini; inì egg mu̧ blood kamate bone tono skin kepene breast adu tree yomo; yomò man ali woman atoa; atòa sun lou; loú moon tokene water ue; uè fire toe stone kue; kué name ibini; ibíni eat nakò; one ne nako one odene two takuta; ta kutà
References
Further reading "Outside and Inside Meanings: Non-Verbal and Verbal Modalities of Agonistic Communication the Wiru of Papua New Guinea" in Man and Culture in Oceania, Vol. 15
External links Timothy Usher, New Guinea World, Witu Andrew Strathern and Pamela J. Stewart Recordings - Andrew Strathern and Pamela J. Stewart Recordings From the Andrew Strathern and Pamela J. Stewart Photographs and Audiorecordings. MSS 477. Special Collections & Archives, UC San Diego.